I spent the weekend helping a friend move her houseful of rescued cats from Memphis to Nashville. She has bought a house, and it has the most wonderful playroom that I'm sure belonged to kids before, but will now make a great cat playhouse. There are cubbies for nearly everyone, and a great patio door that looks out onto the back yard with several trees. I would love help her build some catwalks to traverse the overhead space. Maybe that will happen someday soon.
When I came back from Nashville, the resident feral kitty, whom I call Pippin, met me at the door. She's a sweet cat, not quite tame enough to let me touch her, but recently has decided to rub on my pantleg. Suppose that means I'm ok.
Today, upon return from some errands, I got a surprise. Little kitty-heads popped up from behind the concrete border bricks along the porch. I had my camera with me, so I took a long shot, assuming they would bolt. I quietly walked up to them, and found three little guys cowering under the ledge. One is a mini-Pippen, one looked to be entirely black, and the third is orange and white, and a good bit fuzzier than the others. Two made a break for it, and the third stayed put, probably because its eyes were matted shut.
After I put up some things in the house, I came back out and gathered the little guy up and brought it in to try to wash the gooky off its eyes. Otherwise, the kitten looked fine. No matted hair, fairly clean ears for a feral, and no sneezing. Quite a voice, however, when I began gently soaking off the icky with warm water and some cotton swabs. As soon as I got it cleaned up, I took it back out and set it back on the porch, and it immediately retreated to the same corner. I peeked out later to see it munching on the moistened kibbles I put out. The other two haven't come back, but they ran toward my fenced back yard, and are probably hiding under the outbuilding.
Now, what do I do with more kitties? I can't bring any more into the house. If I can catch the mother cat, she is going to get spayed, and I will try to find homes for the kittens.
4 comments:
Alice, you wouldn't believe it if I told you I just rescued a shrimp today. It was crawling on the sandy ground in an open space. It looked dehydrated, so I quickly took it home to put it in the water.
Found out that the "shrimp" is a zarigani (crayfish or crawfish) endemic to Japan. I named it "Wilmo".
We had those in the ditches around the house where I grew up. They made strange little mud fortresses around their holes, and we would fish for them with a string tied onto a metal nut (for weight) and a small piece of bacon. We never ate them, just would catch them, let them go and watch them run backwards into the holes again. We called them "crawdads" or "mudbugs".
The kittens are so cute!! It's a pity they're not closer, I would surely adopt the orange one. :) (S)He is just like Garfield.
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